


to bury my love (in the moondust)

by oldarchive (farozaan)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, So much bickering, Temporary Amnesia, Working on a case together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28409712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farozaan/pseuds/oldarchive
Summary: Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were by no means friends. Never were and never will be. This is an undisputed fact.Now, wouldn’t it be nice if it were that easy?While working on a case together, Harry is hit with a curse and forgets some very important things.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 138





	to bury my love (in the moondust)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Taedorokiimin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taedorokiimin/gifts).



> this was a special request, i don't even go here and i've actually never written drarry before, so i hope i'm doing them justice! i had to consult my drarry friends who were very enthusiastic in helping me. 
> 
> also thank you megh for always listenting to me go "is this drarry enough?"
> 
> and of course, this is a birthday present for a mutual of mine on twitter, so i hope you like it!!!! happy birthday!! <3
> 
> playlist for the fic: [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0RbpMyT06zoyAwtHe7yqqC?si=2ALwdbdJScC9rQ7BEbrPDg)

Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were by no means friends. Never were and never will be. This is an undisputed fact.

Now, wouldn’t it be nice if it were that easy?

Draco’s eyes are focused on a random spot on the opposite wall with what must be a perfectly bitter expression while the man sent by the Ministry keeps going on and on  _ and on.  _ Admittedly, Draco lost interest in what he had to say early on during his visit to Malfoy Manor. Something about an dark artifact, something the Aurors were needing to know, something something.

It’s not that unusual for the Ministry to come to him whenever it’s about dark artifacts. Draco is known to be an avid collector and his knowledge is vast which he is proud of. He has no intention of ever using any of them of course, is more than happy to just collect them and know that they’re stored away safely. It’s been a few years since he started doing this, ever since graduating, and eventually the Ministry started approaching him whenever they seeked some guidance for their work.

By all means, Draco isn’t doing it for the money. He has enough of that. But being of help is indeed satisfying in a way, even if he isn’t part of the Aurors’ office or the Ministry as a whole like his father once wished for him. Maybe one day. But right now, at twentyfour, Draco is perfectly comfortable with doing his own thing.

“... in any case, it would be of great help if you could come to the Aurors’ office and assist us once again.”

Draco blinks and looks to the other man (Mr Huxley?) again. Maybe he should have paid a little more attention, but dear God these people loved to hear themselves talk. “Alright. When should I come in?”

“Tomorrow morning, if that works out for you. I will prepare a visitation badge at the reception for you, and Mr Potter will fetch you and instruct you further.”

Draco freezes.  _ “Potter?” _

“Yes, this is his case after all, so you’d be working with him.” Mr Huxley looks a bit pensive, likely knowing very well just how well the two of them got along.

Draco bit his tongue from cursing. He  _ really  _ should have paid attention. “Alright. I’ll be there at eight o’clock.”

Huxley visibly relaxes in his seat and nods. “Great. Thank you so much Mr Malfoy. You can discuss any further details with Mr Potter tomorrow.”

“Right. I’ll do that.”

There’s no more reason for Huxley to stick around and he seems more than happy to floo right back to wherever he came from, and Draco watches the dust settle in his salon’s fireplace before closing his eyes and groaning.

Now, it’s not like Draco never worked with Potter before for a case. It actually happened several times. Sometimes Draco was already consulting with another Auror and Potter joined later on, or it was the man’s own case that Draco is called to. In the beginning, it was just plain awkward, and sometimes chaotic as well, but with time it started to work out surprisingly well. At least when they’re at work. Outside of it. Well.

Well.

They’re not hostile. Not at all. And their relationship isn’t even comparable to their school days since many things have changed. Their entire relationship has changed. Though, Draco is even hesitant to call whatever they have a relationship.

They still argue a lot, but it’s like they’re both conditioned to do so. The smallest things would set them off and they would show their claws, but at the same time it’s much less serious than it used to be. In school, there was much malice between them. Now, Draco just mocks Potter’s coffee order, or the book he’s currently reading, or the fact that he’s been wearing the same pair of atrocious shoes even though he has enough money to dress himself properly. 

He just notices things. The way his green eyes seem to look even more intense when he’s concentrating, or the way his jaw looks just a little sharper when he forgets to shave for a day or two. Not that Draco is actually paying attention to these things, he just happens to notice them because he’s observant like that, and he tends to take note of these kinds of things since he works with him a lot. That’s all. 

Draco leans further back on his couch, entertaining the idea of the furniture swallowing up, as he sighs. There’s no helping it, though. His couch does not grab him, and no matter how much he laments, he still has to go to the Ministry tomorrow. 

At least he can be a little late, just to spite Potter. 

And that’s exactly what he does. He’s not terribly late because he doesn’t actually want to be disruptive, he just wants Potter to wait for him by the reception because the image of that is amusing because Draco is petty like that.

He gets to the reception of the Auror’s office just short of ten minutes late and Potter’s annoyed expression was absolutely worth standing in front of his fireplace without actually flooing to the Ministry. 

“You’re late,” is the first thing Potter says to him, and Draco gives him a deadpan look.

“Traffic.”

Potter looks like he wants to argue with him and point out that there’s no way Draco could have been stuck in traffic, but instead he takes a deep breath and just hands Draco his badge. 

“Let’s just go, I’ll brief you on the case in my office.”

Draco follows him inside, occasionally nodding at a familiar face here and there, or purposely ignoring some, until they reach Potter’s office.

The sight is familiar by now, and just like all the times before, it’s messy in a way that gives Draco a headache. “It wouldn’t kill you to keep things a little organized.”

Potter rolls his eyes as he sits down at his desk, shuffling some of the papers and scrolls around. “It is organized.”

“This is a mess. How can you even work like that?”

“I work just fine.”

Draco eyes the desk before him before looking up at Potter with a look that hopefully spells out what he’s thinking about that. “Right.”

“Anyway, we’re dealing with cases of spontaneous and seemingly random amnesia which gets progressively worse.” Potter places some papers in front of him, apparent profiles of the victims. “None of them have connections to each other, different ages, backgrounds, jobs. No apparent pattern, so at first we assumed the perpetrator is just picking and cursing people at random.”

Draco read over the profiles while Potter talked, agreeing that it would be the most logical explanation, but something is bothering him about it. “But?”

“I wasn’t really satisfied with that explanation. The amnesia gets worse with time, and the victims don’t lose their entire memories, just parts of it. That would mean the perp consistently curses them again and again, or the curse is so complex that it has a remote trigger, but that’s quite unlikely. So I was thinking--”

“They all carried a dark artifact that made the effects worse, instead of being cursed by a spell.”

Potter nods, and Draco goes back to the profiles, focusing on the parts that describe the symptoms.

They all started at different times, all developed at different speeds, and none of them forgot their entire memories, always just parts of them. One person forgot where they lived, the other forgot they knew how to fly a broom, one person even forgot they spoke French. Twelve victims in total. 

Draco mulls over it, tuning out that Potter is just watching him from across the desk, and focusing on the information in front of him. They were all brought to St Mungo’s, and ever since then they have not forgotten more things, but also didn’t regain their memories. 

Now that’s odd. 

“You noticed too, right?”

“The amnesia stopped getting worse once they got to St Mungo’s. If it really was a complex curse, it wouldn’t stop no matter where they are. But if an artifact is the cause, then being apart from it--”

“--Would stop the symptoms from getting worse.”

They’re talking hypothetically at this point but Draco is pretty sure this isn’t just a spell. It’s not impossible of course, but it would have to be so complex and elaborate that the likelihood of that is close to zero. 

“There are a few artifacts that cause amnesia but not this way. Not at random. So it was probably tampered with. Also, there must be  _ some  _ way all of these people came in contact with it. You should check where they went just before their symptoms started. I’ll look into what artifact could have caused it.”

Potter nods, satisfied, and Draco thought that working together with Potter like this was almost  fun agreeable. When they both got so focused on work and their way of thinking aligned easily. Of course, it doesn’t last long.

“I’m going to go and get working on that. I’ll send you an owl if something pops up, but let’s just agree to meet again this evening at six. Don’t be late again.”

“I was stuck in traffic.”

“Shut up, Malfoy. You floo here.”

“Network was full.”

They walk out of Potter’s office together, and Potter closes his door a little too roughly which is just immensely satisfying to Draco. “I can’t stand you.”

“Then walk me.”

Potter lets out a strangled noise that definitely had some curse words hidden in there, and Draco just gives him a satisfied smirk which he knows just ticks him off even more. He can’t explain it but he loves Potter’s annoyed face. Well, not  _ love  _ love. He enjoys it. It’s funny, satisfying, stuff like that. Anyway.

In the end, Potter does walk him out of the Aurors’ office and they part ways at the reception and Draco definitely doesn’t look forward to seeing him again later. It’s just the case that’s interesting. That’s all.

Once Draco gets back home, he immediately gets to work. For now, he doesn’t have much to go off on, especially since they still lack the exact location or if it's really an artifact at all. But he still seeks out every amnesia-inducing artifact he can find records of. 

Admittedly, there are a lot. The first one he thinks about is the  _ Forget-It-All _ , a crystal flower that causes the victim to forget about a certain person. Doesn’t really fit the profile because the effects don’t get worse over time and it can only remove relationships or other people from someone’s memory. Next. There’s also the  _ Encyclopediae Memoriae _ , a book that made you forget the more you read from it, but again it doesn’t really fit the profile because it doesn’t erase random memories, but entire chunks. 

Draco goes through the list he put together but none of them fit, and he’s starting to think that this may not be the way to go. He’s revisiting his own theory of a tampered artifact but that could mean that any of them could be it. 

Draco is starting to get frustrated, and it’s almost time to meet Potter again, and he basically made no progress. He also forgot to eat something, so his mood is, quite frankly, abysmal when he gets back to the Ministry and walks through the halls to get to Potter’s office. 

It’s six o’clock sharp when he knocks on the door and waits. He should have stopped somewhere to get something to eat, or at least get a coffee, but it’s too late now anyway. 

Draco waits outside Potter’s office, and it’s been a little too long without a reply. Draco knocks again and waits. Nothing. He knocks again. “Potter, it’s me.”

No reply.

_ He didn’t. He fucking didn’t.  _

Potter is late and Draco knows it’s on purpose to pay him back for earlier. This absolute bastard.

The minutes tick by and Draco is just standing there outside Potter’s office like an  _ idiot _ and with every minute that passes, Draco’s already bad mood just gets worse and worse.

It’s bordering on eleven minutes when Potter finally rounds the corner and shows up with a fucking coffee in his hand. Draco has half the mind to not curse him on the spot.

“You’re bloody late.”

Potter has the audacity to  _ shrug.  _ “Traffic was bad,” and he takes a sip from his coffee.

“What are you? Twelve years old? Seriously?”

Potter opens the door of his office and they both walk in and Draco really didn’t miss this pigsty made of scrolls and paper. 

“I really don’t need to hear this from you, Malfoy.”

Draco rolls his eyes and sits down across from Potter at his desk. “Tell me you found out something useful at least.”

“Depends. I spoke to the victims and some of them couldn’t really recall all the places they’ve been to. Most of them said Diagon Alley.”

Draco blinks. “Diagon Alley? Is this a joke?”

“Unfortunately not. But some of them mentioned the same antique shop that opened recently so we can check that one out first. Maybe a dark artifact landed there by accident. What about you? Any luck?”

Draco grimaces. “Not really. I didn’t really have anything to go off from, and the existing artifacts that are somehow related to amnesia curses all have different patterns. So if it really is an artifact and not a spell, it must be a tampered one.”

Potter leans back in his chair and sighs. “Well, there’s no helping it. We can go to that shop tomorrow morning and check it out. Maybe it wasn’t even done on purpose.”

Draco shrugs non-committedly but he doubts that someone could accidentally sell a tampered dark artifact to several people,  _ if  _ that shop is really the cause. “We’ll have to wait and see. I’m still going to look more into it until then.”

Potter raises one of his eyebrows at him. “So hardworking of you, Malfoy,” he says with that stupid smirk of his that drives Draco up the wall.

“Shut up, Potter.”

As expected, Draco was not able to find anything even after getting home later that day. There was just not enough information, and he was also just too annoyed at some point to really get into it.

The next day, he is ready to floo back to Diagon Alley to meet Potter on time, but he lingers for a moment in front of his fireplace. It would truly be petty to arrive late again, wouldn’t it? Draco is an adult now, and they were working on a case together. He shouldn’t.

Draco shows up in front of Flourish and Blotts exactly eleven minutes too late, and it takes everything in his power to not grin at Potter’s annoyed face. 

“Seriously?”

“Got lost.”

“You’re insufferable.”

Draco can’t help himself after all and smiles. “Thanks.”

Potter rolls his eyes and just walks past him, apparently expecting him to follow, and unfortunately Draco does have to do just that, but pissing off Potter first thing in the morning is enough to appease him. 

“The shop should be somewhere around here. Let’s just pretend to shop something.”

Draco catches up to Potter, walking beside instead of behind him just to give him an incredulous look. “Yes, because Harry Potter going shopping with me, Draco Malfoy, is lowkey and inconspicuous enough for an undercover mission.”

“We could be doing Christmas shopping, stop being difficult.”

“Christmas is in three months.”

Potter groans. “Do you  _ have  _ to be so obtuse all the time?”

“To you? Yes.”

Potter rolls his eyes and continues on, leading them further down the busy street towards the shop in question  _ (‘Tinnsley’s Antiques & Wonders’) _ and it’s by far not as busy as the other shops around it, but by no means empty. 

They glance at each other once before walking in, apparently agreeing to a momentary truce. (They’re drawing enough attention just by walking next to each other, no need to add the bickering to it.)

At first glance, the shop is nothing special. It’s basically just filled with various trinkets, some magical tools, some old furniture-- just the usual, really. They walk up and down the aisles, and they both glance at each other and nod before separating to take a closer look around.

If it really was an artifact that progressively affected the victim, that meant it must have been something small that they could have taken with them. It couldn’t have been a giant clock, or a table. Draco takes out his wand and hides it under his cloak, silently casting a spell that would lead him to darker sources of magic. He waits for the spell to react to anything as he walks through the shop but nothing happens, and the more he walks around, the more his hope is dwindling to nothing. 

Truth be told, the old lady manning the register doesn’t look like an evil mastermind either.

After a few more rounds, Draco sighs and gives up. He can’t find anything, so this whole thing has been a total bust. He puts away his wand and looks until he spots Potter at the other end of the room.

As Draco approaches him, he sees that Potter is holding something, eyeing it with interest. It’s a Remembrall. Draco rolls his eyes and walks up to him. At least he’s having fun browsing.

“I got nothing,” he says quietly. “Did you? Or were you too busy ‘Christmas shopping’?”

Potter glances at him and shakes his head. “Couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary either.” Potter sounds distracted for some reason and Draco looks between him and the Remembrall.

“Then let’s go? We’ve been here for too long already.”

Potter just hums. “Did you know that I got into the Quidditch team thanks to a Remembrall?”

Draco frowns at him. “Yes? I was there?”  _ I took it from Longbottom and threw it. _

Potter just nods, still staring at the glass ball in his hand, and something was off. But before Draco could even say anything, the smoke inside the ball shifted and suddenly turned black. Draco’s eyes widen and he immediately reaches out to smack it out of Potter’s hand.

Potter still seems to be out of it, even when the Remembrall falls to the ground and bounces across the store. Draco curses and wraps his hand around Potter’s wrist, pulling him towards him. “Potter, snap out of it!”

A few of the other customers are now looking at them but Draco doesn’t care. He’s looking at Potter, trying to catch his gaze which is still unfocused and apparently far away. 

“Bloody hell-- Potter?” Draco turns his head towards the older lady. “Excuse me, I have to ask you to clear the shop. I’m Draco Malfoy and this is Harry Potter, we are here on official Auror business.” Draco doesn’t let go of Potter’s wrist but he uses his free hand to take out the badge Potter gave him.

The elderly woman, probably Mrs Tinnsley, stares at him with wide eyes and seems to be frozen in place in surprise, and only after Draco motions for her to get moving does she start walking around, making everyone leave.

Draco watches her go around, apologizing to the few customers as she asks them to leave, making sure to catch it if she does anything suspicious. His hand is still around Potter’s wrist and he looks over to him once the last person has left the shop. He seems to be a little more aware now, albeit still confused.

“Potter?” Draco calls out to him and Potter’s eyes snap to him, eyebrows furrowed.

“Draco-- Draco Malfoy?”

His voice sounds so confused, and Draco has a really bad feeling about this. “Do you know where you are? Why we’re here?”

Potter blinks once, looks down at Draco’s hand around his wrist, and back up to him. “Work. I’m here because of work.”

Draco sighs in relief. “That’s right. We were looking for something. Do you remember what?”

Potter is still frowning, apparently trying to sort out his thoughts and having troubles doing so. “We?”

Draco blinks. “What?”

“Why are you saying ‘we’? What are you doing here, Malfoy?”

Draco stares at him, mouth open in surprise, as he takes in Potter in front of him. The confusion on his face is slowly being washed away and is instead being replaced with comprehension. Potter harshly pulls his wrist away and Draco stares down from his hand back up to Potter’s face.

“We’re working this case together. Do you remember that?”

“Excuse me, Mr Malfoy, please what is going on?” The elderly woman has joined them, looking between them in worry.

Malfoy turns back to her and then motions towards the Remembrall on the floor. He’s, admittedly, feeling a little lost seeing that he has Potter next to him who seems to have forgotten something pretty important (about them), coupled with the case on hand that still needs to be solved. He takes a deep breath. One thing at a time.

“Are you the owner of this shop? Where did you get this? Also, do you have more in stock and to how many people did you sell them to? We believe that they have been tampered with.”

“Oh, yes, this is my shop! And I bought these along with ten others off a man a few weeks ago. This is a secondhand shop, so people sell their antiques and trinkets all the time. What do you mean they have been tampered with?”

“I need to know the name of that man, and I need to know how many you have already sold. And the ones that are still in your possession.”

Mrs Tinnsley looks confused, and she doesn’t appear to be acting. She hurries back to the register, mumbling under her breath in quiet panic. “Also, do not touch them. If they’re in a box, let me retrieve them.”

Malfoy pulls out his wand and levitates the one Potter touched towards himself to look at it.

“Malfoy. What is going on? What do you mean, we’re working a case together?”

Ah right. Malfoy gulps and looks at Potter, and his expression is one that Draco knows very well. This is how Potter used to look at him back in Hogwarts. 

“Do you remember what case this is?”

“Amnesia case. Can you answer my questions now?”

Draco bites the inside of his cheeks until it hurts. This isn’t good. “I was called in because you suspected that it’s a dark artifact causing this.”

“Why would I work with  _ you?”  _

“Potter, you probably have forgotten a few things because you just got in contact with the tampered Remembrall. We work on cases all the time. What is the last thing you remember about me?”

It can’t be that much. What could he have possibly forgotten that had him reverse back to the downright hostile look he’s giving Draco now. They aren’t hostile. They don’t do that anymore. They bicker, they fight, yes, but they don’t hate each other. Draco doesn’t hate him. 

He doesn’t hate him.

Potter frowns at him. “The last thing-- I don’t know but I definitely don’t remember ever working with you.”

Draco lets that sink in. Potter doesn’t remember any of their cases. He forgot the times they worked together. He doesn’t remember their first case, years ago. 

Back when the bad blood between them was still a lot sharper, Draco’s bitterness a lot more intense, and the old wounds still too fresh. When they had a huge argument to the point that Potter shoved him against the wall of his then office, a much smaller one than the one he owns now, and told Draco that he hadn’t changed one bit.

That had infuriated Draco because that was the one thing he didn’t want to hear; it was what he was most scared of. That he hadn’t changed after everything that happened even though Draco had worked so hard, had tried, was  _ trying,  _ and for Potter to throw that at his face-- it made him so angry.

It was a very intense fight. Draco remembered how he almost lost himself then, Potter’s words echoing in his head like a nasty curse.  _ It’s not true. You don’t know anything, Potter,  _ he had replied and they was more shouting, Draco had grabbed Potter’s forearms to turn them around and push him against the wall instead.  _ You don’t know a damn thing about me! _

_ Oh, I know enough, Malfoy. _

They were both angry and the only reason it didn’t turn into a full blown altercation was Granger’s arrival there and then and she pulled the two of them apart and scolded them for acting like that at work. 

After that day, Draco was convinced that him and Potter could never move on from the past, no matter what Draco did or said. 

Before he left that day, he stopped by the door, looking back at Potter. 

_ I’m not going to start arguing with you again, Malfoy,  _ Potter said when he noticed him lingering.

_ I’m not going to start anything. But just I-- I’m trying.  _

It was their first case but that’s when things actually started to change. It was the first time Draco admitted to Potter that he didn’t want to be the same person anymore. It wasn’t an instant change, of course. It took time, so much time and effort. So many arguments and long nights forced to cooperate until they reached their current status quo.

If Potter really forgot all that-- Draco didn’t want to think about it.

Draco isn’t a fool. He knows that he hasn’t hated Potter for a long time.

He takes a deep breath. “It’s the truth. We have worked together several times now, and we are working together on this case as well. I know what the cause of the amnesia is, so we can fix this.”

Potter’s expression tells Draco enough. He doesn’t believe him,  _ (I know enough.)  _ and Draco doesn’t know what he could say to change that.

It’s then when Mrs Tinnsley returns, a box floating in front of her. “Here are all the Remembrall I haven’t sold yet. And here is the name of the man that sold them to me. I can’t believe someone would do such a thing! If I’d known--”

“You’d be surprised by the things a lot of people do,” Draco cuts in, waving his wand so the Remembrall he has joins the other in the box and takes it off her. “We will be in contact again. If you find any more of these, do not touch them and contact the Aurors’ office immediately.”

Honestly, Draco isn’t sure how he is keeping his calm, especially when he feels Potter’s stare downright boring into him. He has to get them back to the Ministry and then figure a way out to undo whatever curse is on these Remembralls, especially now that Potter counts as a victim too.

“Give me those,” Potter says as soon as they walk out of the shop, trying to take the box and Draco holds it away from him.

“I don’t think so. You’re actively affected by these and any contact, no matter how small, could just make it worse.” 

“So I’m supposed to just let you carry a box full of dark artifacts?”  _ (I know enough.)  _

Draco sighs, and shows Potter the temporary badge from the Ministry. “Right now, I officially work for the Aurors’ office. You gave this badge to me, so yes, you will let me carry a box filled with dark artifacts. Suck it up.”

Potter continues to glower at him all the way back to the Ministry, even when they get back to his office and Draco carefully puts down the box, still away from Potter because he knows how stubborn that man is. 

“Listen,” Draco sighs, physically standing in front of the box now to keep Potter away, and now that they’re in his office, the setting reminds Draco too much of that one fight, even though it’s not even the same room. “I know what’s the problem now, so I can work on undoing the effects of this and the other victims, and once you’re back to normal, my work is going to be over and done and you can run after that guy who apparently cursed this in the first place. Just let me do my bloody job, Potter.”

“And how am I supposed to trust you?” 

Draco hides his clenched fists under his robe. “You remember that you’ve been working on a case about amnesia, right? So you can probably connect the dots here and understand that you forgot that we’ve been working on this together.”

“But how am I supposed to know if that’s true? What if you have something to do with this?”

Draco feels how the guarded expression he was sure to keep up slips off in an instance and he stares at Potter in shock. His mind completely empties at Potter’s accusation and his hands start to shake now.  _ Ah,  _ he thinks then.  _ I’m actually really hurt by that. _

“I would never do that--” Does his voice sound strange? 

“Wouldn’t you?”

Draco turns around, hiding his face because he doesn’t know what his expression looks like and he tries to shake off the racing thoughts going through his head as the reality sinks in that. Right now, Harry Potter has no trust in him. This Harry Potter doesn’t believe him. 

This Harry Potter hates him. Again.

“I’m going to go and work out a way to undo the curse.”

“I’m not letting you--”

“Just ask Granger or Weasley then! They can confirm my story.” Draco still has his back to Potter. “You can do it right now.”

There’s no immediate response, but eventually Draco hears Potter move behind him and he glances back and sees him write down a memo. He watches him send it off and it doesn’t surprise him when Hermione Granger walks right into Potters office just minutes later.

“Harry, what kind of question is this?”

“He’s affected by a memory altering artifact and has forgotten all the times we’ve worked together, “ Draco explains before Potter can get even a word in. 

Granger’s eyes widen. “He’s  _ what?  _ What happened?”

“Wait,” Harry looks between him and Granger. “So it’s true? I actually work with him?”

Granger nods. “Yes, Harry. It’s the truth. You two--” She stops for a moment and clears her throat. “You, uh, get along.”

“Told you,” Draco mumbles out of reflex and only after Potter glares at him does he remember again that, ah yes, he doesn’t remember their bickering either. Draco clears his throat. “Granger, could you please convince him to let me leave with the artifacts so I can work? We have several civilians and one Harry Potter whose memories have the integrity of swiss cheese.”

Granger sighs and walks closer to Potter, putting a hand on his arm. “Harry, I know it must be really confusing for you right now because you’re missing these important memories, but you can trust him.”

Potter looks like just the thought of doing that, trusting Draco, pains him but he just sighs and nods. “Fine. I still can’t wrap my head around that, but fine.”

Granger gives him a gentle smile and Draco rolls his eyes, despite all. “Right. I’m gonna go then.” Draco grabs the box, finally allowed to do so, and walks towards the exit. “I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow morning.” He doesn’t turn back to Potter because he’s had enough hateful looks today. 

“Wait, I’ll walk with you, Malfoy,” Granger says, walking after him and Draco frowns as she joins his side. “I’ll be right back, okay Harry?”

They walk out together and Malfoy doesn’t know what she wants but she has that look on her face, the one where she can’t mind her business for one bloody second.

“It’s gonna be fine.”

Draco blinks once. “What are you doing?”

“I’m just saying! You know what the problem is, right? Once you can undo the curse, the two of you can go back to, well,  _ you know.” _

Draco stops walking at once. “No, I don’t know. What are you getting at here, Granger?”

She actually rolls her eyes at him. “Come on, Malfoy. That weird witty war the two of you have going on! The one where you pretend you aren’t actually enjoying each other’s company.”

Draco continues walking and passes by Granger towards the exit. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He ignores Granger’s  _ “of course you don’t”  _ and just continues on, just waving his hand in goodbye without looking back, and ignores the heavy feeling in his stomach as he returns home to get to work. 

Now that Draco finally knows what the cause of the amnesia is, it shouldn’t be too hard to counter it. Though, he must admit that whoever did this, is skilled. He’s never encountered Remembralls that were modified in such a way and it’s certainly an easy way to slip by investigations since they’re such normal everyday items. 

Draco is careful not to touch any of them as he starts working on them, ignoring as the time slips by and it becomes darker outside. 

Working helps him block out unnecessary thoughts, helps him forget the way Potter was treating him earlier. It was by no means anything he hadn’t encountered with him before of course, but it’s been so long that it still left him with a bad feeling.

He tries to tell himself that the reason he was grinding through the evening and late into the night is because he likes to do his job right and it has nothing to do with that piercing feeling in his chest as he remembers Potter’s words that were sharp as knives.

It doesn’t work very well.

Draco is so consumed by his work, he almost doesn’t hear the knock on his front door. (Which does happen sometimes. His residence is huge.)

Draco frowns as he safely puts away the Remembrall he was working on, locking his study on his way out with a quick wave of his wand, and walking towards his front door. 

He doesn’t know what or who expected to come to his door in the middle of the night - maybe Pansy but she never knocks, she just waltzes in - but it certainly wasn’t Harry Potter.

Draco’s eyes widen in surprise and he freezes at the door as the two of them stare at each other. Draco’s mind, embarrassingly, empties and he is speechless for a moment, while Potter just looks at him with a guarded look.

“I got your address from Hermione,” as if that explains why Potter is here.

“You-- okay?”

Potter’s left eye twitches for a moment and he takes a deep breath. “Can I come in?”

Draco still feels a little too surprised to actually say anything and just steps aside to let Potter in, shutting the door behind him, and closing them in in an awkward state of silence. 

Potter’s eyes look around Draco’s entrance hall and Draco wonders if he remembers coming here before (Potter and him has worked on past cases here countless of times after all) but then Draco remembers the time Potter and his friends were here when they were still in school, and he hides his grimace. Great. 

“Are you still working on the Remembralls?” Potter disturbs the silence, still not looking at him.

“I am. Can’t let the great Harry Potter walk around with holes in his memory,” Draco replies and immediately regrets it. The jab had been out of instinct but Potter didn’t seem to appreciate it in his current condition. 

“You know, Hermione said that we get along but I just can’t picture it.”

Draco tries not to flinch, and attempts to brush that off. “So? You’re here to chaperone and make sure I won’t erase the memories of everyone in London?” He asks and he can’t help but let the bitterness seep through into his words. 

Potter turns at him, brows furrowed. “I’m here to apologize for accusing you.”

Draco opens his mouth in surprise and, once again, he’s speechless. There weren’t many times Potter (or actually, either of them) apologized to him, and seeing that Potter hates him right now, Draco didn’t expect that. Were they their usual selves, Draco would have teased him, and they would have started bickering back and forth. Of course he won’t do it now.

Earlier he said he has no idea what Granger was talking about, but Draco knew it very well.

Draco sighs and shrugs his shoulder. “You made all your way here, so may as well stay. I think I’m close to undoing the effects and we can see if it works.”

Draco starts walking back towards his study and for a while he doesn’t hear any footsteps following him, so when he reaches the foot of the big staircase, he stops and turns, raising an eyebrow at Potter who is staring after him.

Potter hesitates for a moment or two, and Draco half-expects him to scoff and walk out the door, but instead he takes a step forward and follows Draco back up.

Usually, Potter would know his way to Draco’s study. He stayed over once, as they were working. Not intentionally. They had stayed up late and at some point, Potter had fallen asleep on Draco’s desk. Draco remembers watching him for longer than he’d ever like to admit, before getting up and throwing a blanket over him and crashing on the couch in the study. 

The next morning, none of them mentioned it. Draco gave Potter a fresh shirt to change into, ignoring the way his clothes looked on him. It was just a plain black shirt. It could have been anyones, he reasoned then. They had breakfast together, only argued once, and one of Potter’s comebacks actually made Draco snort. After that they finished up work and Potter left.

He never returned that black shirt, but Draco also didn’t ask for it. It was just a plain black shirt. 

Now, Potter looks a little lost as he follows Draco down the corridor, looking around as if something would jump out at him any moment. The few portraits on the walls don’t actually pay them a lot of mind since they have seen Potter here several times. (After all, the only portraits Draco kept were the ones that didn’t shout at him for being a traitor to their bloodline. The ones that stayed, were the ones that either didn’t care or understood.)

Draco stops in front of his study, unlocking his door with a wordless spell and lets both of them in. The lights are still on from when he was working in here before, and the teapot with tea he made himself is still warm. 

“Tea?” He offers and Potter looks at the teapot on the desk like he’s never seen one before. 

“No thanks.” Draco figured that. He shrugs and pours himself a cup, sitting back down and motioning for Potter to sit down wherever. 

“I pretty much nailed down how the Remembralls were manipulated and have started to work out a counterspell. If my theory is right, I have to do that with each Remembrall of the victims. This one is the one you touched in the shop. As soon as I remove the curse, you should be able to remember.”  _ You should be able to remember that you don’t hate me anymore, _ he thinks as he resumes his work.

“Any traces of who could have done it?”

Draco doesn’t look up from the Remembrall in front of him. “Now, that will be your job.”

Potter huffs, and Draco glances up at him and sees that Potter is looking around his study, in particular his wall that holds the artifacts he has locked away. (At least the less dangerous ones. The rest is locked away in the basement.)

“So this is what you do? Dark artifacts?”

Draco hums, surprised Potter is interested to talk to him. “I collect them so no one with less than admirable intentions can get their hands on them. And sometimes, like this time, I remove the curses on them.”

Draco is pretending to work while he feels Potter's eyes on him. If this continues, he won’t get anything done tonight. Potter isn’t saying any more, but he continues to watch Draco, even as he manages to slowly get back to work, as unnerving as it is. He knows Potter wants to ask him more questions, knows that he is still distrustful of him. Draco doesn’t say anything though. He just drinks his tea and works.

“How?” Potter asks, much later, so late that Draco had managed to get back into a groove and he jumps at the question.

“How what?”

“How did we--” Potter seems at a loss of words but Draco knows what he wants to know.

“No point in telling you now. You’ll remember soon.”  _ I will make sure of that. _

Potter doesn’t seem satisfied with that but Draco doesn’t care. He’s not going to bring up their entire adult history when every word is wasting his time to work and actually get the Potter he li-- knows back. So Draco gets back to work and Potter doesn’t say anything anymore, and the next time Draco looks up to pour himself some more tea, Potter has fallen asleep sitting up on the couch with his head leaning against the wall behind him.

Draco watches the image in front of him for a moment, and he gets up and throws the thin blanket he keeps in his study over him, just like he did before, and then gets back to work. He’ll make Potter remember him, no matter what.

The sun is already up when Draco finally does it. 

He watches as the black smoke inside the magical trinket finally shifts and turns, first to grey, then a muddish red, bright red, and finally white.

Draco stares at it and waits. Waits for it to shift back to black or red, or for it to do anything but it*s just hovering innocently in front of him like a normal Remembrall is supposed to. He lets out a shaky breath, keeps the air in for one, two seconds. 

Then he gets up from his desk, ignoring his aching back and legs, as he trips over to Potter who is still out like a light.

“Potter. Wake up.” Draco can’t even hide the urgency in his voice, but it’s okay because no one is here to witness it and Potter is not even awake to call him out on it. He puts his hand on Potter’s shoulder and shakes him.

Potter’s eyes blink open then, and for a moment he looks confused. He looks around the room before his eyes find Draco’s. “Malfoy?” he asks and his voice is still rough from sleep. “When did I fall asleep-- Oh.”

At once, Potter seems wide awake and his eyes widen as he sits up, staring at Draco in alarm. Draco watches him like a hawk, waits to see if those eyes turn bitter and cold again like they had been yesterday. He watches him just like he did with the Remembrall before, watching the smoke change colors before dissipating. 

Potter’s eyes don’t shift. They don’t turn cold, don’t look at Draco with hate. Their green is as vibrant as ever as they take him in, and Draco is so beyond acting like he doesn’t care about it. “You remember.” It’s not a question.

As soon as Potter nods, Draco’s head falls forward and he presses his forehead to Potter’s shoulder who at first freezes in surprise but eventually relaxes under him. “I remember.”

Draco just takes a moment to breathe. His head is pounding from working nonstop, he’s tired, and his back is aching but at least Potter remembers again, and he doesn’t hate Draco. A hand finds Draco’s hair and he feels the fingers shyly tread through his hair. It’s surprisingly gentle but maybe Potter is also tired of pretending, at least for this moment.

“Malfoy, I’m so--”

Draco lifts his head with a sigh and the hand falls away from his head. “You already apologized yesterday. Stop it, it’s freaking me out.”

Potter doesn’t look convinced but he huffs at the little jab. Just like he always does. Just like always. “I didn’t apologize for the right thing though.”

Draco shrugs, as he did yesterday. “Whatever. I’m tired. I know how to lift the curse now, so do your great Auror thing and get them all to me. Oh and--”

“Malfoy,” Potter interrupts. “Just get some sleep. Now that we know, we can take this one step at a time.”

It’s reasonable enough, and Draco can’t think of a counter argument or maybe he’s really just too tired to do so. So he just hangs his shoulders and drops down on the couch next to Potter and closes his eyes.

“You’re going to sleep right here?”

“My house, I can do what I want.”

Potter snorts next to him and it feels good. It’s only been a day, maybe even less than twenty four hours since Potter forgot the  _ thing  _ they had but it’s not something he ever wants to experience again. He hadn’t realized how much it would actually affect him.

Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were by no means friends. Never were and never will be. This is an undisputed fact.

But it isn’t that easy, after all.

Draco must have been more exhausted than he realized because he feels his mind almost crashing down and sleep is gripping him and pulling him under really quickly, and that must be the reason why she shifts until he feels his head and the right side of his body collide with something warm and solid.

Draco feels a hand taking his, and it’s probably sleep just messing with him. “Don’t hate me,” he mumbles and he feels his hand being squeezed.

“I don’t. I don’t hate you at all.”

When Draco woke up, Potter was nowhere to be seen, but he left a note that said that he had to get back to the Ministry and ask him to meet him at six o’clock.

Draco was so out of it that he wondered if all of it was just a fever dream. (At least he hoped the last few things he remembers before falling asleep were in fact dreams and didn’t actually happen.) He shook off his still aching back, and instead got to work to undo the curses on the remaining Remembralls they took from the shop, and now that he figured it out, it was done in under two hours.

Draco stalls a bit after that, knowing he has to get to the Ministry again but also dreading to do so. The events after he made sure Potter remembered everything were hazy at best, but Draco definitely knows that he did in fact collapse on Potter’s shoulder in relief, and Potter had buried his fingers in his hair.

Draco didn’t really know what to do with that information.

There was no helping it though and for once, he was late but not out of pettiness.

He gets to the Aurors' office and walks towards Potter’s office, and because the universe is a joke, Draco runs into Potter who also just turned the corner. They both pause and stare at each other.

“You’re late,” they both blurt out, and just like that they fall back into their pattern,

“Don’t tell me you did it on purpose again,” Potter says, opening the door to his office.

“I was never late on purpose.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Draco closes the door behind and sits down on his usual seat across Potter’s. “Back to work?”

Potter didn’t sit down yet, instead he stands next to Draco, looking down at him in something akin to wonder. Draco raises an eyebrow at him. “What?”

Potter blinks, as if ripped out of his thoughts, and then reaches out and then, by  _ Merlin, _ brushes his hand over Draco’s hair. Draco altogether freezes and he feels his face growing warmer and warmer. “Wh- What are you-”

“Strand was out of place. Let’s get to work.”

Draco watches Potter as he just calmly sits down and Draco isn’t an idiot, and he definitely sees the tips of Potter’s ears grow red. “You--”

Potter looks at him and smiles, and Draco’s words die in his throat.

_ God, I hate him.  _

_ No, I don’t. _

“You’re so annoying, Potter.”

Potter snorts and opens the file in front him. “Ditto.”

  
  
  



End file.
